Gevorg Altunyan, Head of Information and Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, told 168.am that he can’t clearly state how many casualties the Armenian side has suffered, “Casualties have been recorded on both sides, direct military operations are ongoing, i.e. we can’t provide full information on casualties or the wounded until military operations are over.”
Armenian Armed Forces engaged in a battle with the Azerbaijani forces. Sniper and mortar fire are being used. The Armenian Armed Forces fully control the situation – preventing the encroachments of Azerbaijan.
The economist brought the example of “Zvartnots” airport, when there is no restriction in the duty free area, and generally in other countries actions are being organized to boost purchase.
“At the same time, the issue isn’t the Armenian representative, but recently serious issues have emerged between Moscow and Minsk. Those issues relate to the crisis in Ukraine, then Belarus intends to raffle national elements, authorities of Belarus have arrested Russian bloggers, thus, restricting their activity.”
“Russian-Armenian Contemporary Humanitarian Institute” educational foundation owes the state around AMD 600 thousand. The Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) plans to urge the foundation to return the debt to the state budget at the session to be held on December 28.
“The EU may violate its responsibilities on signing the agreement, or may reduce financial assistance in some fields. The methods are different. I consider the EU in any case will sign the negotiated agreement with Armenia,” he said.
“Iran is a very crucial partner and neighbor in many dimensions—trade, transport, energy, geopolitics. I read the statement by Rouhani in Yerevan as a standard diplomatic formulation, in other context— Netanyahu’s visit to Baku.”
“I consider, nothing has changed here, the sides should attempt to maintain former volumes of cooperation, although both of them are deepening military cooperation with different centers, in this case Armenia with Russia, and Georgia with NATO.”
“Georgia is one of the most interested sides in this issue , as regional instability means instability to Georgia. It made a proposal of becoming a platform for negotiations, of course, its implementation wasn’t realistic on account of OSCE MG functions, however, Georgia would implement such unbiased functions in case of desire by the two sides,” Irakli Menagarishvili said.
Reflecting to conditions, which Iran may establish for the Armenian businessmen, Shafei stated that Iran’s economy is getting used to the new situation. According to him, Iranian Government got used to the regime of self-sufficiency under the sanctions, attempting to foster capabilities of local producers. He considers for this very reason Iran has become self-sufficient in almost all the fields.
